High performance integrated circuits (e.g., microprocessors) have specifications that are tightening voltage regulations on printed circuit boards (PCBs), such as motherboards. These voltage regulations are requiring decreasing amounts of allowable voltage drops on the PCBs. These specifications often conflict with device designers' goals as devices, such as network devices, are becoming more complex. These goals include fitting an increasing quantity of components, such as memory chips, microprocessors, ASICs, signal processors, etc., onto PCBs and to reduce sizes of PCBs to allow the devices to be as small as possible.
One current solution, to meet the aforementioned integrated circuit specifications and the large power load requirement of the components, is to place two large bricks (DC/DC converters) on a PCB (e.g., one large brick on each end of the PCB). These large bricks take up a lot of space on the PCB, cause power-up/power-down sequencing issues, and often require placing load sharing circuitry on the PCB. Another solution is to provide a dedicated DC/DC converter for each integrated circuit of a PCB. However, this solution occupies even more space of the PCB and is even more costly than the two large bricks solution. Also, these solutions may require additional multiple layers of thick copper, which further occupy additional space of a PCB and increase costs.